228 Crossing the Line 



From Europe related usages are known. The young apprentices among 

 the artisans were ill-treated by their older comrades when they had finished 

 their education, and moreover they had to pay an abundant amount for a 

 meal with plenty of drink and food for all of them. It will be seen that this 

 is the same symboHc meal, by which a new man is recognized as a real fellow 

 of the others, as on board ship. 



The older students at the universities tieated the new ones in almost the 

 same way (depositio), and in the schools the young pupils were — and still 

 are — baptized by their older conu-ades. 



When a foreign farmer came to a village he had to give a feast for the 

 guild of the other peasants, with beer and abundant food. The boys in the 

 village who wanted to be acknowledged as groMoi-up men had to carry heavy 

 stones, smoke a pipe, drink a glass of brandy, kiss a girl, etc., and last, not 

 least, to give their comrades a feast. 



The sÈiilors and the fishermen used the same ceremonies.^^ The young 

 cabin-boys that came on board were baptized, keel-hauled, ducked, shaved, 

 examined and tried in other ways. On some modern ships in Denmark and 

 Norway — and most likely in other countries — the new sailors are brought 

 to a cabin by their comrades, where they are m0nstret (mustered); they 

 must take off their clothes, and their genitals are examined in a rather ob- 

 trusive way ( in order to ascertain that they have no venereal disease, they 

 say ) . If they let them do it, it will soon be over, but if they make resistance, 

 the genitals are besmeared with a mixture of grease, tar, etc. After this they 

 give a glass of beer and are acknowledged by their comrades as good mem- 

 bers of the crew.^^ 



It is now more than a century since the first folklore students and scientists 

 wandered over various coimtries to collect material about the habits and 

 traditions of the people. Milhons of records have been collected since then, 

 hundreds of books have been written on account of them, and the science of 

 folklore has won its reputation and place beside other branches of knowl- 

 edge. But unfortunately most of the records deal with the life and faith of 

 the rural population. Our forefathers forgot ahnost completely to question 

 other classes of people — the artisans, the population of the towns, the 

 workers, the fishermen and the sailors. This is why we are rather iU-informed 

 with regard to the traditions of the sea. Of course, we know something about 

 them, but not enough, when we want to get to the bottom of them. And now it 

 is too late to start a new collection. We must resign ourselves to admitting 

 that it will be impossible for us to know exactly and in detail the traditions of 

 the old and dead sailors. We must be thankful for the small and casual testi- 

 monies that have been preserved for us to use. Our theme, the sailors' 

 baptism, would have been easier to treat in a complete way, if we had known 

 more about it than we do. We can only guess that it has been much richer and 

 more widespread than we know now. 



37 Henning Henningsen in Handels- og Sfifartsmuseets ârbog ( 1948), pp. 64 seq. 



38 Dr. phil. Svale Solheim, Oslo, and others. 



